Supply Chain Partnership Success
Date
2011-06-24
Authors
Venter, Eugene
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Abstract
Customer service has become a crucial part of the integrated supply chain in
the ICT industry. Customer-facing activities are often outsourced to authorized
third party companies who, in effect become the custodians of customer
satisfaction.
The need for good customer service management has become a key
differentiator for companies seeking competitive advantage. Furthermore,
switching costs have reduced significantly and this is providing customers who
have experienced poor service with a number of alternatives. This has
increased the risk of outsourcing customer service.
ICT companies are therefore faced with the challenge of developing successful
partnerships with the purpose of mitigating potential risks, while maintaining
high levels of customer satisfaction. The purpose of the study is to determine
what factors will improve the likelihood of partnership success and to
understand how these partnership success drivers can be incorporated into
service level agreements (SLA).
In-depth, semi-structured interviews were used to obtain the views of senior
managers and executives involved in the management and outsourcing of
customer service activities. The main finding was that service supply chain
partnership success will be realised when end consumer satisfaction is
achieved. In addition, collaboration, cooperation, coordination, communication
and commitment and trust, will improve the likelihood of achieving partnership
success. Finally it was found that these partnership success drivers can be
incorporated into a service level agreement either explicitly or implicitly
Description
MBA - WBS
Keywords
Supply chain partnerships, Service level agreements, ICT industry